By George & Josh Bate
Hocus Pocus, Halloween, Casper, Sleepy Hollow. These are just some of the movies that come to mind for everyone when thinking of films that evoke that spooky Halloween atmosphere. But these are far from the only movies that capture that autumnal feeling of leaves crunching under your shoes, Halloween decorations in the suburbs, haunted houses, pumpkins, costumes, and everything that makes the spooky season so great.
Here are 10 movies you probably haven’t seen (or even heard of) that we think perfectly capture the spooky Halloween atmosphere….
Haunt Season
Around Halloween, a young woman joins the cast of a fairground haunted house, but her fellow actors start disappearing. It soon becomes clear that a masked killer is murdering the actors in ways that mimic the gruesome deaths of their characters. Filmed at an actual haunted house called Realm of Terror in Round Lake Beach, Illinois!
Haunt Season is streaming on Tubi and Pluto TV for free.
Cobweb
Antony Starr and Lizzy Caplan star in this underrated horror movie from 2023. Young Peter is plagued by a mysterious, constant noise from inside his bedroom wall — a tapping that his parents insist is in his imagination. As his fear intensifies, he starts to believe that his parents are hiding a terrible and dangerous secret.
Cobweb is streaming on Netflix
The Houses October Built
A fun and genuinely unnerving found footage horror flick. Looking for a good fright for Halloween, five friends set off on a road trip to discover the scariest underground haunts. As their trip seems to have reached a dead-end, strange things start to happen and it becomes clear that the haunt has come to them.
The Houses October Built is streaming on Philo and Tubi for free.
Tales of Halloween
A comedy horror anthology of ten interlocking segments all set on Halloween. The stories revolve around ghosts, ghouls, monsters, the devil, aliens, axe murderers, and more.
Tales of Halloween is streaming on Prime Video, Tubi, and Pluto TV.
Under Wraps (1997)
We recommend the 1997 original, although the 2021 remake isn’t awful. Three twelve-year-old children, Amy, Marshall and Gilbert, encounter a mummy which has been undiscovered in three thousand years. While investigating, they accidentally revive him, but he must be returned to his resting place by midnight on Halloween or he will never find his long lost love.
Under Wraps is available for purchase on Google Play.
Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire
A Disney Channel classic from 2000. The Hansen kids have major social engagements planned, but have all been grounded – so they are delighted when their mum gets a date, enabling them to sneak out unnoticed. However, their delight is short-lived when brother Taylor suspects her new boyfriend is a bloodsucker.
Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire is streaming on Disney+.
Haunt
A brutal, gripping haunted house slasher from the writers of A Quiet Place. On Halloween, a group of friends encounter an extreme haunted house that promises to feed on their darkest fears. The night turns deadly as they come to the horrifying realization that some nightmares are real.
Haunt is streaming on Tubi for free.
Night of the Demons (1988)
An overlooked ’80s gem. A group of high school students throw a party inside an isolated funeral parlor on Halloween night. While attempting a séance, they accidentally release a demon locked in the crematorium that begins to possess them one by one.
Night of the Demons is streaming on Prime Video, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, and Sling TV.
Lady in White
Locked in the cloakroom after school as a Halloween prank, Frankie (Lukas Haas) meets the ghost of a young neighborhood girl, Melissa Anne Montgomery (Joelle Jacobi), who had been found strangled to death 10 years before. Frankie soon learns that nine other children have been killed in the years since, and with the spectral help of Melissa and her mother, a grieving apparition known as The Lady in White (Karen Powell), he attempts to discover the murderer before he becomes his latest victim.
Lady in White is streaming on MGM+ and Philo.
Hell House LLC
Another spooky found footage horror movie to feast on this Halloween. This one takes place five years after fifteen people were killed during a haunted house tour and a documentary crew visits the scene to investigate what really happened.
Hell House LLC is streaming on Tubi, Pluto TV, and The Roku Channel.